For a long time there was little change in guitar amplifiers. The tube amplifier got invented and got respected in all genres of music. Even after progress had been made on transistor amplifier something stayed special about the true tone of the tube amplifiers and many musicians have always preferred this sound over any current technologies.
With our new and innovative view on sound engineering we want to combine the true sound from the tube amplifiers with the amazing new technologies in digital signal processing. With the DSP as central unit we will have a tube-preamp, providing the amplitude suitable for the ADC and a power-amp to create enough power to be live on stage.
The DSP will have many different digital effects that the user can change and several analog effects that can be added into the FX loop. A touchscreen will be implemented to make a user-friendly interface.
Project description
The amplifier will be a combination of a traditional tube amp and a digital sound processor. To be able to couple these parts we could not use a traditional amplifier architecture. We chose to design a separate preamp, coupled to the digital sound processor which then gives a signal to the power amp.
To be successful in this BeCreative Minor project, we needed to combine analog design, digital processing, and software development for the realization of prototypes for all the modules of our amplifier system.
Here is an overview of the modules that we designed:
- Pre amplifier
- Power amplifier
- Power supply
- DSP software
- VST plugins (for the sound effects)
- Interfaces based on TouchOSC
- Housing with touchscreen, speakers and module bay
Project results
Instead of producing one complete prototype we did produce the separate modules as working individual prototypes – such as for the distortion plugin, the TouchOsc interface and the Elk OS – as well as working simulations of the analog electronics and a beautiful finished casing design.
We will leave an extensively documented road of research and results which can be used to eventually build the amplifier. Next to this we have all greatly improved in technical knowhow about designing a traditional and yet unique amplifier.
In the end, this innovative system is exciting for the market, and the project team is very pleased with the result.